


home to venus

by Voidromeda



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 12:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18315545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voidromeda/pseuds/Voidromeda
Summary: On a trip to Pluto gone wrong,  Noor Howard is stranded in space.





	home to venus

**Author's Note:**

> Also available on [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/565179) and [Dreamwidth.](https://starrelia.dreamwidth.org/4501.html)

Noor Howard is a simple woman. Married, quiet, and withdrawn. Always withdrawn. Now especially, when she is so very far away - staring up at the glimmering and dots of stars that pepper across the darkness of the galaxy - and it is in that quietude where her thoughts wander off from her.

There is a soft, low hum in the makeshift home in her ship, with pots of plants struggling to grow in this new environment, and a chill in the room that the damaged systems cannot entirely get rid of. Cracks line the flickering screens of the ship’s computers, the data incomprehensible and unreadable, and the system struggling it's hardest to keep her alive.

Whatever information she has been collecting for NASA back home sits rotten in her hands, the keyboards non-functioning and only the mouse and some parts of the screens are still working - barely, if one is to be kind about it. Her negligence in the upkeep of her ship is what has led her to this: with a damaged ship and navigational systems that have gone haywire before malfunctioning entirely, she floats near the outskirts of Venus.

The heat-heavy planet burns brightly, a constant light beaming in through the small window on the ship, and Noor has had to turn away on more than one occasion to avoid the irritation in her eyes. Venus hasn’t been her destination for this specific voyage, so to be this far away from her original location has her heart sinking heavy in her belly.

There is going to be some time before everyone back home realizes that there is an issue with her aircraft when her daily check-up isn’t met and they haven’t gotten any new data, and she has yet to test whether or not the transmitter and radio works, the stress of her misfortune keeping her from trying anything out just yet.

All she has been doing, for the past hour or so [she guesses, the clock has been flickering too much for her strained eyes to focus on properly], is stare outside at the vast expanse of space before her. Inky darkness gazes back at her, with glimmering bright stars that call for her to come and investigate, just to see if they hide anything away from her, beckoning her into their terminal embrace.

She sighs heavily, then looks over at the ever distant Andromeda, and Noor closes her eyes to shield herself from the burning brightness of Venus as the ship tilts a certain way. The lights on the ship beam back on once more, flashing bright behind her eyelids and bathing her in a light that has been sorely missing for half a day, and her eyes flutter in irritation before she is forcing them open to look up at the stark white ceiling above her. She runs a hand through her hair, ruffles it up a little, then settles herself upright to push towards the little closet in the ship.

The door jams briefly, before it slides up with a terrible groan, and it takes some tugging and pulling before she is able to pull a drawer out to grab for a headscarf and wrap it around her head - loosely, this time, with some of her hair falling out briefly before she is tucking them behind the white cloth.

She doesn’t have any pins or anything else to fashion it around herself and instead settles for something simple while having nothing to cover up her bangs. She allows for her ponytail to hang out, peeking out from underneath her hijab, and Noor lets out a soft, shaky sigh now that her scarf is wrapped around her head.

Outside, the stars are ever patient even as they get closer and closer to their inevitable deaths, and Noor feels a sharp pang in her chest as she gazes upon the bundles of hydrogen and helium. Her gaze falls onto what little of the sun she can see from the ship’s current angle, quickly flickering over onto her tether and spacesuit and before she is looking back outside.

She leans her head against the spaceship’s small window, eyelids flickering shut and her body slumps heavy against the wall. Her eyelashes clump wetly together, and she rubs at them with her thumb while letting free a shaky sigh. When she is able to rest, with the skittering bugs underneath her skin deciding to make their leave, and her mind no longer jumping from cliff’s edge to cliff’s edge, then she will wake tomorrow and begin working on the controls to see what she can salvage.

There is no point in panicking when there is no one around to hear her, and when she has yet to discern if there truly is a reason to fall into hysterics. And if she is to fall into an anxiety attack, what is there to glean from that? It is with those thoughts repeating in her head that she drifts back to her bed and curls up, her hijab jostling with the minute movements she makes, and yet she cannot bring it in her to take it off just yet.

Let sleep throw her around, and she will surely awake with her scarf floating aimlessly above her head.

 

When the next Earth day comes [or so she assumes], with her clock flickering so quickly that she cannot tell exactly if it is six or eight in the morning in California, Noor sets to working with the controls now that her mind has entered a dull haze. The oxygen in the ship will be enough to last a year at the very least, from what she is able to glean with a bit of focus thanks to the broken screens, and she won’t have to worry about the life support failing any time soon.

It is just that trying to navigate the computer itself is going to be far more difficult now, and the navigation system itself is shot. She won’t be able to make any return trips on her own until she is able to deal with the headache inducing damage before her. There is no way that she will be able to input anything in or send anything back to headquarters, though it is with a bit of fiddling that she is able to work the computer enough to send nothing but a blank report back with the vague hope that they will think something odd about it.

Though, she doesn’t send the report back just yet. She turns to work with the transmitter and radio, fiddling around with the equipment with a drifting mind yet steady hands, and she bursts out into tears when there is a small, affirming beep from the communications system. There are some dents in the poor thing, the transmitter having faced the worst of the damage and there is a red light on her end, but Noor still brings her hands up to her face, her palms catching the tears as she sobs.

Her vision is blurry after the minute or so she has given herself to empty her heart out and her hands begin to rub at her eyes to try and force the world to come into sharp focus.

With a few clicks the report is sent away, carrying with it the tiniest speck of hope she has that that will grab someone’s attention, though Noor isn’t entirely sure when it is that they will be able to respond. For now, her stomach is growling and contracting on itself, pain shooting through her and reminding her that she has not eaten anything since her panic last night and the good half hour or so that she has spent fiddling around with her ship’s systems.

It is convenient how hunger decides not to make itself known until relief floods her.

There are a good amount of nuts, brownies, and fruits left behind, with chicken and macaroni and cheese being out of the picture thanks to the malfunctioning oven. The potted plants are continuing to struggle within the volatile environment that the ship is now supplying them, and Noor pointedly does not look at the drooping leaves of what are supposed to be radishes. The lettuces look especially sick and soft, and she grabs at their pots, stores the soil and lettuce carefully in packages, and her hand trembles as she throws them away into the trash compactor.

With her stomach full of food, her consciousness drifting in and out of the waking and sleeping world, and her bones heavier than boulders, Noor settles back next to the ship’s window, her elbow resting upon the circular rim and her chin sitting on her palm. She stares out at the burning Venus, takes in the smallest peek of the sun, and strains to see the Andromeda galaxy miles away.

The computer screen flickers, showing the main screen that burns in bright neon, and the communication system is quiet. The clock continues its visual stuttering, the numbers flashing too quickly for her to get a grasp of what time it is right now. The light of the spaceship dims and dims until it is completely off. Warmth dances along her fingertips, crawling underneath her uniform, and Noor stares out the window.

Earth is out of her vision. Venus glares at her as she trespasses into its property.

 

 

And she waits.

**Author's Note:**

> Where to find me:
> 
> [ Tumblr ](https://transistories.tumblr.com/) | [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/Transistors12) | [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/transistor) | [ Dreamwidth ](https://starrelia.dreamwidth.org/)


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